"I am endlessly busy, bringing up five young kids, and trying to keep up with the three older ones. I still spend most of my life driving car pools."

"I like summer. I like warmer weather and long days. I'm one of those silly people who still enjoy lying in the sun - my children are horrified!"

"The usual way - through a long series of rejections, revising my manuscripts, and kept trying again and again. Finally I was fortunate enough to find a good agent."

"It's difficult to talk to people... I walk into a room and I'm Danielle Steel, and whatever I say is going to be taken apart."

"I move between San Francisco and Paris... I have a wonderful beach house in California."

"The records of adopted children are sealed in California. That seal is considered inviolable... The judge ruled that, because I was famous, he didn't have the same rights as other kids."

"I started writing stories as a child."

"I try to give people hope. Even though life is bleak, there's hope out there."

"I did it at night because I loved it. I never did it to make money, as a job. I just did it because I had to."

"My early reviews were so bad that I decided I didn't want to read them again."

"My kids are more precious to me than anything. I'm with them all day, and I write all night."

"In my late teenage years, I developed a real passion for it, and wrote a lot of poetry."

"I completed my first novel when I was 19 years old."

"I think I'm very real as a person, and that comes across in my work."

"If you see the magic in a fairy tale, you can face the future."

"A book begins with an image or character or situation that I care about deeply."

"I studied literature design and fashion design."

"I'm astonished by my success."

"I've shut myself inside these walls, and I'm going to be a very lonely old lady if I'm not careful."

"I wrote because I needed to and wanted to. It never occurred to me that I'd become famous."

"People are much more inclined to believe and say bad things about you if you're famous."

"It's hard being visible, so I've made myself invisible."